LACKAWANNA INSTITUTE 

OF 

HISTORY AND S0IEB0E 


POETS AND POETRY 

OF THE 

Wyoming t X \ 1 1 e \ 

"Bet ."NTv 7- ill Si IMoiteoe 




SPECIAL PUBLICATION No. 2. 



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POETS AND POETRY 

OF THE 

Wyoming * Valley 

ZB1T " t v^7“IXjXj S- H^OHSTIBOIEL 


REPRINTED PROM 

THE SATURDAY ARGUS 

* FOR THE BENEFIT OF 

The Lackawanna Institute of History and Science. 

SCRANTON : MARCH 1887. 


T O give a critical and historical analysis of 
the poetry of the Wyoming Valley, ne- 
cessitates the exploringof a hitherto unwritten 
department of local literature. Mr. John S. 
McGroarty.in his Poets and Poetry of Wyoming 
Valley , gives selections from the better-known 
versitieis, but no critical or historical remin- 
iscences. For this brief survey I have taken 
possession of many widely-scattered facts and 
have endeavored to mould them into a his- 
tory of Wyomiug Valley Poetry ; and, while 

I have admired the songs of our native 
writers and made the touch cf the critical fin- 
ger somewhat gentle, I have sought to point 
out the powers and limitations of the singers 
and emphasize their imperfections. 

More than a hundred years have passed 
since the first local writers began to drink in- 
spiration from the beauties of this historic 
valley and to pour forth their intoxication 
with sparkling emication * 1 - of poetic fancy. 
It was in 1785 that Uriah Terry wrote his 
“Wyoming Massacre in 1810 that Charles 
F. Wells wrote the “Warriors of Wyoming,” 
and in 1812 that James Sintou wrote the 
“Poor Man and the Doctor.” Edward Chap- 
man, Charles Miner, and and Josiah Wright 
helped to swell the flood of local verse during 
the opening years of the present century, but 


their rhymes contain little merit and can 
scarcely be called poetry. The published 
verses of Amos Sisty, Andrew Beaumont, A. 
T. Lee, Sarah Miner, and Charles Mowery 
evince a degree of poetic talent, though un- 
equal and faulty in finish. 

The Literary Visitor, established at Wilkes- 
Barre in 1813, served as a medium of com- 
munication for the early writers of this sec- 
tion. It was royal octavo size, a weekly 
journal, and published by Steuben Butler. 
The Visitor was primarily a literary period- 
ical, and the editor, in the salutatory of the 
initial number, assures his readers that the 
paper will be devoted to every department of 
knowledge “which can be considered useful, 
interesting, or amusing to all classes of read- 
ers — biographical sketches of the most im- 
portant personages of America and Europe — 
anecdotes of wit and humor — important facts 
in the history of nature — remarkable events 
in the history of nations — the finest flights of 
the muse— the selected beauties of ancient 
and modern eloquence — such essays as will 
instruct correctly in morality and duty, in 
education, science and the arts; and these 
selected from the best writers, will appear in 
a dress calculated to form a correct taste in 
English composition.” He also informs his 


2 


POETS AND POETRY 


readers that “the great part of the paper, in- 
stead of being occupied with advertisements 
which are useful only to a few men of busi- 
ness, will be filled with such a diversity of 
matter, that it can hardly fail of obtaining a 
welcome reception from every reader." This 
promise was well kept. It contained no ad- 
vertisements during the two years that it ex- 
isted, and was the principal market for the 
wares of the early Wyoming Valley writers. 

The Frontier Maid , or a Tale of Wyoming , 
was the first poetical volume published here. 
It was a metrical romance of two hundred 
pages written by Joseph McCoy and pub- 
lished at Wilkes-Barre in 1819 by Samuel 
Maffet and Steuben Butler. It is a narrative 
of the massacre of Wyoming, has ten or a 
dozen prominent characters, is divided into 
five cantos, aod has an appendix of nineteen 
pages ot notes explaining the geographical 
and historical allusions ot the poem. Mature 
years painfully revealed to the author the de- 
fects of the pOem and he subsequently col- 
lected and burned all the copies he could get. 
Although characterized for its inequalities 
and absurdities, The Frontier Maid is not 
wholly without merit. Here and there a line 
can be found having the genuine poetic ring. 
Mr. McCoy was, of course, too deficient in 
constructive art to elaborate a well-sustained 
narrative; but, had he been less ambitious 
and given more finish to what he undertook, 
he might have written clever verses. 

The Harp of the Beech Woods , by Juliana 
Frances Turner, was published at Montrose 
in 1822 by Adam Waldio. The selections are 
chiefly lyrical, of which “My Home in the 
Beech Woods" is perhaps the best. “Even- 
ing," a dainty pastoral, is a poem of remark- 
able purity and simplicity ; and “The Hum- 
ming Bird" and “Happiness at Home" are 
delicate and picturesque descriptive lyrics. 
The volume contains a dozen sonnets which 
detract from the merit, of the book, since the 
author evidently knew little or nothing of 
the mechanical construction of the sonnet. 
The sonnet “To a Mother” is rich in senti- 
ment; and in the one on “My Rhymes" she 
displays a genuine sense of refined humor. 


The Wyoming Monument , “A Poem by the 
Lu-Natic Bard of Wyoming," was published 
at Wilkes-Barre in 1841 by Anthony P. 
Brower, the author, and dedicated to the 
Ladies’ Monumental Association of Wilkes- 
Barre. It is an attempt at lyric poetry, but 
has no merit, whatever, aud tenns with the 
eccentricities which characterized its author. 
About the only redeeming feature of the 
book is the twelve-page appendix of explan- 
atory notes. A receipt fur the price of the 
book, in the bard’s own handwriting, was at- 
tached to the first page of each copy sold. 

Richard Drinker and Edward E. Le Clerc 
were both writers of meritorious verse. Mr. 
Drinker’s “Address to a Land Tortoise," pub- 
lished in Chandler's Magazine of Philadel- 
phia, in 1819, shows him to have been pos- 
sessed of a rich sense of humor combined with 
all the fervor of a true poet. “Christmas," 
after the style of Burns, is humorous, witty 
and genial. His poems are wanting in deep 
pathos and originality of thought, but are dis- 
tinguished for their vigorous common sense 
and unique execution. Edward E. LeClerc 
another writer of clever verse, posessed the 
divine gift of song to a remarkable degree. 
His best poem, “The Massacre of Wyoming,” 
was read at the commencement exercises of 
Dickinson College in July, 1839, and subse- 
quently published in Godey's Lady Book 
This, and the poem on the death of his friend 
Lieutenant James Monroe Bowman, represents 
him at his best, although in all his writings 
he displays an exquisite sense of rythrn and a 
remarkable instinct in the choice of words. 

Magaziue readers ot forty years ago doubt- 
less remember often having read verses by 
“Edith May’’— Miss Anna Drinker, of Mont- 
rose. During these years she wrote exten- 
sively for Graham's Magazine , Curtain's Mag- 
azine, and the Home Journal, then edited by 
N. P. Willis and George P. Morris. A col- 
lected volume of her poems was published by 
E. H. Butler & Co., of Philadelphia, in 1851. 
The preface to this edition was written by 
Mr. Willis, who said of her poems, “The 
rhythm has an instinctive power and dignity, 
showing the key to which her mind is ha- 


OF WYOMING VALLEY. 


3 


bitually tuned, the conception and manage- 
ment of the subjects being full of originality 
and beauty.” A second edition of her poems 
was published by the Butlers two years later. 
It contained a portrait of the author, copied 
from a sketch of her by Wm. H. Furness. 
This volume was elegantly bound and pro- 
fusely illustrated by Cheney, Furness, Dev- 
ereux, Grealbach and others of her artist 
friends. The second edition being soon out 
of print, a third edition was published by 
James Miller, ot New York, in 1874, which 
was shortly afterwards entirely exhausted. 
The second and third editions, which were 
alike except in mechanical execution, each 
eon tamed sixty selections, fifteen of which 
were purely descriptive. “Count Julio,” an 
Italian story which was written when Miss 
Drinker was less than seventeen years old, 
ranks as a masterpiece in the line of blank 
verse. “Christmas,” a ballad, illustrates 
well the author’s freshness and richness of 
style, and “Rosabelle” and “Lady Clare,” 
the delicacy and strength of her expression. 
“Magdalena’s Confession,” remarkable alike 
for its purity and simplicity, contains some 
exquisite passages. Her “Two Chants,” Mr. 
Willis said, “shows the port and mien ot one 
whose work in the highest fields of poetry 
would be that of inborn stateliness and fit- 
ness.” In “ Forest Scenes ” she manifests a 
fondness for country hills and fields; and all 
the sights and sounds of greenwood witchery 
are there to make innocent and sincere the in- 
spiration of this singer. Her subjects and 
treatment, it is true, are usually in the di- 
rection ot the sad and mystical— the poetical 
chords oftener vibrating to the mournful 
surges of the darkly flowing river of Lethe 
than to the cheerful music of bright waters 
that break on fair shores; yet her poems of 
sorrow and doom prove emblematic of her 
own future and the weight of soriow that op- 
pressed her soul. 

Lizzie Gordon was also born at Montrose 
and lived there until she was thirteen years 
old, when she was sent to the Female Semin- 
ary at Easton ; at fourteen she became one of 
the teachers of that institution and two years 


later she returned to Wyoming Valley and 
for six years taught in the public schools of 
Pittston ; the eight following years were spent 
at Pittsburg as assistant principal ot a graded 
school, returning to Wyoming Valley in 1854 
where remained up to October 1884, when the 
Master called her to a higher service. Dur- 
ing the six years preceding her death, she 
was a helpless invalid and suffered in- 
tense bodily pains from an incurable 
malady, all of which were borne with 
genuine Christian fortitude. It was dur- 
ing this period that many of her best 
poems were written. In the preface to The 
World’s Future she says, “Situated as I am, 
a helpless and hopeless invalid, I have been 
constrained to fill up the time in exercising 
my mental powers to ameliorate the dull mo- 
notony of a sick room and in some measure 
render life a blessing.” Besides her poetical 
contributions to the newspapers of this local- 
ity, she published two pamphlet-volumes of 
verse, Among the Flowers , in 1879, and 
The World’s Future , in 1881. The verses 
of both volumes breathe the true spirit of 
religious fervor, and though somewhat sad 
in tone, th y are eminently sweet, strong, and 
original. When the eyes are full of tears we 
can hardly expect the heart to pour forth a 
joyous lay ; yet to say that Lizzie Gordon’s 
poems are sad, is not to declare that they are 
morbid or hopeless. There is a simple sweet- 
ness, an earnest goodn< ss, in her verses which 
invariably win the heart of the reader. In 
her religious poems, the peculiar mental 
traits of the author are best exhibited ; and 
however faulty they may be in artistic re- 
spects. the purity of their sentiment and 
freshness of their atmosphere are proof 
against adverse criticism. “Let Me Die” and 
“Ministering Spirits” show best how delicate 
the strings upon which she played and how 
finely attuned they were to impressions. 

Hon. Steuben Jenkins, the poet historian, 
was born at Wyoming in September 1819 ; his 
education was obtained mainly at the common 
schools ; in 1847 was admitted to the practice 
of law in Luzerne county and shortly after- 
wasds be was in charge of the Foreign Mail 


4 


POETS AND POETRY 


Bureau at Washington for several years; he 
served three terms in the State Legislature , 
has always been identified with the education- 
al, historical, and literary interests of Wyom- 
ing Valley, and through a period of public 
services covering many years, there has been 
neither flaw nor shadow in his consistent and 
exemplary career. As an author, he has 
written much and well, but published little. 
Full of vigor, originality and dramatic power, 
his verses breathe the crispness of the morn- 
ing air and the pungency of spring buds ; and 
however defective we may find the finish of 
his work, we cannot but admit that their 
author possesses a well stored mind and a 
high degree of portic inspiration which is 
always drawn from Nature’s great foun- 
tains. “Wyoming,” a tale of the Revolu- 
tionary war, “Mauitou of Wyoming,” and 
“The Concord Chase,'’ his longest poems, 
contain many delightful descriptive passages. 
“The Forest of Life” is a collection of his 
shorter bits of verse, many of which evince a 
fair degree of lyric power. 

Mrs. Harriet Gertrude Watres, the sense of 
whose loss is so fresh upon us, was by nature 
singularly sweet and musical and her poems 
sing of themselves. She sang as the birds — 
in pure, serene and hymn-like roundelays — 
and her songs are as sincere and genuine as 
those of the sylvan minstrels, possessing all 
the hilarity of the bobolink, the faith of the 
song-sparrow, the love of the blue-bird, and 
the spiritual serenity of the hermit-thrush. 
Finished and original in style, delicate in 
sentiment, fertile in imagination, and musical 
in expression, Mrs. Watres was a poet of high 
order, and her verses rank with the very best 
yet produced by Wyoming Valley singers. 
Cobwebs, a volume containing one hundred 
and twenty-five short poems, was recently 
published by D. Lothrop and Comj any, of 
Boston, and its merits can not but impress 
the most careless reader. “Barefoot” illus- 
trates how well she succeeded in investing 
common ideas with new charms; and in 
“Caged” her rich imagination arises to the 
sphere of the true ideal. Deep pathos and 
refined humor are always nicely wedded. 


At every shoaling in the serious stream of 
“The Quarrel,” “Through the Keyhole,” and 
“Ripe Cherries,” a vigilant sense of humor 
ripples. “Woodland Friends,” and “My 
Cottage Home” exhale the fresh breath of a 
May orchard ; and “Love’s Loss” and “Lu- 
line” contain all the sweetness and melody, 
and much of the genuine touch of true poet- 
ry. Her melody is so perfect that were not 
these pleasant fancies as philosophical as 
they are musical, I should be inclined to 
charge their author with singing simply for 
the music’s sake ; but combined with all this 
melody is a depth of rare thought and fine 
poetical imagery. “Bret Harte” and “Snow 
Birds” are genial poems, and the former is 
constructed with remarkable ingenuity. In 
“Twice Waiting,” “Rae,” and “Faces on the 
Street,” she manifests a thorough under 
standing of the language of natural emo- 
tions and a profouud knowledge of the 
reserves and refinement of poetic art. 
Few writers have better succeeded iu blending 
exquisite melody with serene, satisfying, 
and uplifting sentiment, or given us a 
finer adjustment of word to thought; and 
with an ever changing variety of measure, 
she not uufrequeutly interests the reader 
quite as much iu the treatment of a subject as 
iu the subject itself. To those who know the 
worth of her poetry, It is a matter of regret 
that she is not more generally read ; but un- 
til the people of culture in this rich valley 
come to realize the genuine work which iu 
obscurity and discouragement the few are 
doing for its honor, neither the local writers 
nor their friends need feel that popular 
neglect signifies merited condemnation. 

Mrs. M. L. T. Hartman, who has written 
extensively both in prose and verse during 
the past forty years, was born at Huntington 
in 1817 ; aud her early education was that 
afforded by the common schools of nearly 
three quarters of a century ago. She early 
formed a taste lor readiug aud writing and 
manifested, even in childhood, an inventive 
faculty. After marrying, tnough burdened 
with the usual domestic cares, she kept up her 
habits of study and wrote frequently tor the 


OF WYOMING VALLEY. 


5 


local papers. For many years, both before 
and after her marriage, she was engaged in 
teaching ; and in the school-room she found 
a successful exercise of her talents and a field 
of uutiring influence and usefulness. During 
the civil war she materially aided the cause of 
the North both by personal aid and the wit of 
her brilliant pen. Mrs. Hartman has always 
been in demand as an after-dinner poet : and 
much that she has written was designed for 
mere temporary effect and passed away 
with the occasions which called it forth. She 
has, however, written many odes, pastorals, 
and descriptive lyrics which teem with wit, 
sentiment, patriotism, and poetic beauty. 
There is in her writings a blending of strength 
and delicacy, a fondness for country hills and 
fields and a disposition to gladden and beauti- 
fy even dull places. She is in love with the 
singing birds, the breezy fields, and the 
wayside brooks; they sing to her and 
she in turn sings of them. She wor- 
ships freedom and republics; and her in- 
tense patriotism, hatred of wrong, and inex- 
haustible sympathy for struggling humanity 
are always expressed with remarkable force 
and beauty both in her prose and verse. Her 
History of Huntington Valley , published in 
the Mountain Echo , was a work of great 
labor, originality, and ability. She gave to 
it that careful and intelligent research, which 
enabled her to make it as valuable for its ac- 
curacy as attractive by all the graces of style. 

Miss P. A. Culver and her sister Mrs. Mary 
Dale (Culver) Evans have lorg been identi- 
fied with the literature of northeastern Penn- 
sylvania. They were born in Fr nkliu town- 
ship, Luzerne County, and obtained theiredu- 
cation in the district schools and at the Wyo- 
ming Seminary, from the latter of which 
Mary Dale was a graduate. They early man- 
ifested a taste for literature and before they 
had reached the age of eighteen both were 
writing for the well-known periodicals of the 
day. Although wholly unlike, there is in 
their writings the same trace of keen sensi- 
bility to natural impressions, tenderness of 
feelings, and delicate perceptions. Their 
poems possess a freshness ofexpression, an air 


of melancholy tenderness, and a rustic 
versification that leads the reader to 
suspect that more is due to nature 
than to study, to genius than to art. “Alone ” 
and “ Little Jane ” are perhaps Miss P. A. 
Culver’s best poems; they are not great crea- 
tions, yet their diction is elegant and their 
conceptions pure and teuder. “ In War 
Times,” published in Forney's Press in 1862, 
is treated with great vigor of thought and 
simplicity of language. “A Decoration Hymn” 
is a simple lyric that is full of tender 
sympathy and beauty; it was published 
in Godey’s Lady Book in 1876, and was 
subsequently set to music for a decoration- 
memorial exercise at Philadelphia. She has 
also written a number of short stories which 
bear the impress of an original and well- 
stored mind. Mary Dale Culver, lately 
married to Hon. George Evans, of French- 
ville, West Virginia, has written verses of 
considerable merit. She is noted more 
for beauties of expression than for fine 
inventive power aud vigorous execution. 
“Under the Daisies” and “The Inner Life” 
prove her possession of a high degree of 
poetic vigor. 

Philip O’Neill was born in Maryland in 
1834 ; he passed the greater number of his 
boyhood days in Bradford County, this state, 
and during the entire time of the civil war he 
served in the navy. Although gifted by na- 
ture with keen sensibilities and a fine poetic 
temperament, yet for the want of artistic 
finish much of his writing falls short of being 
genuine poetry. His verses are all pure in 
tone and written with candor and charity. 
Mr. O’Neill is singularly in love with human 
nature aud writes with the eloquence of 
truth aud appreciative sympathy. “The Sis- 
ter of Charity,” “Emma Helme,” and 
“Parted” are as good as could be selected 
from his many pieces to indicate the healthi- 
ness of his lyric impulse. 

Homer Greene, Esq., the poet-lawyer, was 
born at Ariel, Wayne County, this state, 
January 10, 1853; was graduated from Union 
College, June, 1876, with the degrees of A. B. 
and C. E., and from the Albany Law School 


6 


POETS AND POETRY 


in 1877 with the degree of LL. B ; admitted 
to the Wayne Connty bar December, 1878, 
since which time he has been in active 
practice, serving as District Attorney of the 
County for one term. Such is a meagre out- 
line of his outward life; and now as to his 
writings: His first literary effort was written 
while a student at the Riverview Military 
Academy, Poughkeepsie, New York ; it was 
a story entitled “ The Mad Skater,” and was 
published in Wayne Reid’s Magazine Onward 
for June, 1869. While a student at Union 
College he contributed liberally both in prose 
and verse to college literature, aid was 
special correspondent for the New York Even- 
ing Post, Albany Evening Journal , Troy 
Whig, and Albany Argus. “ What My Lover 
Said,” his best-known poem, was written dur- 
ing his senior year and first published in the 
New York Evening Post, November 9, 1875, 
with only the initials “ H. G.” signed to it. 
Its merits were patent, and it was widely 
copied and largely credited to Horace Greeley. 
The newspapers, however, were soon correct- 
ed ; and its recognized excellence won for its 
author the encomiums of the most select 
critics. In unique conception and artistic 
execution, the poem is a masterpiece. Every 
line has compactness, precision, and elegance ; 
it has an unstudied freshness, a sunny humor, 
and an artistic polish most genuinely the 
author’s own, for Mr. Greene is quite as much 
a poet of art as a poet of sentiment. “ My 
Daughter Louise” and “Kitiy,” published 
in Judge Tourgee’s disastrous literary 
venture, The Continent, confirmed his reputa- 
tion as a poet of the first order. The former 
is natural, graceful, and tender aud infused 
with just enough sentiment to make it effec- 
tive ; the latter has a playfulness of style and 
nicety of finish that betray the refined taste 
and practiced ear of one who has completely 
captured the spirit of Divine song. “She 
Kissed the Dead,” published in The Christian 
Union , in 1874 and “ The Rivals,” printed 
in The Critic, in 1885, have an artist-like 
finish and are written with great animation 
and deep feeling. In these, as in all his 
poems, his fancy is of a truly vital character 


and his art-instinct thoroughly trustworthy. 
The two sonnets published in The Scranton 
Truth, “ To Rev. H. C. S.” and “ Reversal,” 
contain real pulses of feeling and flow from 
a heart full of sweetest affection. Mr. Greene 
seems quite as much at home in prose 
compositions as in his verse; and the 
same individual tone that dominates his 
poems is equally marked in his stories. “The 
Professional Juror,” which appeared in Lip - 
pincott’s Magazine in 1884, “A Thanksgiv- 
ing Verdict” in The Albanian in 1885, “Dick, 
the Door Boy” and “The Van Slyck Dog- 
Case” in The Scranton Truth , and “ The 
Blind Brother,” which won TheYouth’s Com- 
panion’s fifteen-hundred dollar prize, are all 
legitimate works of fiction. His themes are 
original and well chosen; his keen observa- 
tion penetrated by an imagination which is 
quickened into activity by a deep and humane 
sentiment; the tone of his stories is healthy 
and life giving throughout, and his lay char- 
acters transmitted into creatures of flesh and 
blood; his language is smooth and copious; 
his descriptive passages are life-like, and his 
artistic execution not inferior to that of the 
best novelists of the day. 

Miss Susan E. Dickinson is a writer of re- 
fined literary tastes and one whose genius 
Wyoming Valley justly appreciates. Her 
facile pen has done more, perhaps, to depict 
the bright side of life in the coal regions than 
that of any other writer. The Press and The 
Saturday Evening 1 ost, of Philadelphia ; The 
Tribune, Herald, and Graphic, of New York, 
and l he Traveler, and Pilot, of Boston, are 
some of the journals for which she has writ- 
ten extensively both in prose and in yerse 
during the past fifteen years. Her newspaper 
articles are full of energy and show care and 
elaboration — the evidence and fruit of honest, 
painstaking workmanship ; and her book re- 
views, obituaries and editorials have alike 
been characterized for their smooth language 
and rich diction, and as eagerly sought by the 
metropolitan press as by the reading world 
generally. Miss Dickinson has also ven- 
tured in the department of fiction where she 
has been eminently successful. “A Christmas 


OF WYOMING VALLEY. 


7 


Rehearsal,” “Who Shall Win Her?” and 
“How Christmas Came to Azalea Forrister” 
are suggestively wrought stories and contain 
many passages of rich description, eloquent 
sentiment, simple pathos, and deep, philoso- 
phic thought. Strong, however, as Miss 
Dickinson is as a writer of descriptive news- 
paper articles, literary criticisms, and clever 
stories — and her handiwork is always skillful 
and often imaginative and strong— she has 
excelled as a writer of verse. Her style is a 
model of grace, ease and refinement, and 
many of her poems are constructed with re- 
markable ingenuity and finished with con- 
summate art. She is seldom at loss for the 
proper word with which to olothe her idea ; 
her external perceptions are alert and true, 
and the artistic finish o( her poems is truly 
commendable. “Reubinstein” published in 
the New York Tribune , November, 1872, 
gives token of a beautiful poetic yein and a 
sparklingly original style; every line has 
elegance and flows with its fellows in ex- 
quisite harmony. “A Prayer in Blindness,” 
originally published in The Home Journal , 
is one of the finest and best sustained of her 
poems ; it is a masterly rendition of the iam- 
bic pentameter blank verse and shows the 
depth and beauty of her thought. In “Mig- 
nonne,” “At Vesper Time,” and “Oriole,” 
all published in The Home Journal, the poet 
strikes a wider range of melody, especially 
the latter, which, in its novel and fantastic 
modulation, approaches Shelley’s “Skylark.” 
Her sonnet on “Wordsworth,” published in 
th e New York Independent, entitles her to a 
place in the most select circle of modern 
singers “The Apostle of Ireland,” published 
in Boyle O’Reilly’s Boston Pilot, is a medley 
of six exquisite sonnets whose mechanical 
construction, with a single exception, is per- 
fect, the merit, in the mechanism of the 
sixth sonnet, being slightly marred by 
the grammatical break betw< en the oc- 
tave and sestelte. Miss Dickinson has 
also written a number of religious and 
elegiac poems which bear the impress of a 
finished and original style. “ Easter Arpeg- 
gios” was published in The Churchman and 


contained three hundred and twenty-five lines; 
and “ In Memory of Horace Greeley,” written 
for the New York Tribune and subsequently 
published in the Greely Memorial Volume , is 
rich in both sound and color. Her poems are 
marked for their melodious versification, 
beautiful imagery, and moral purity. 

Combining in himself the true poet and 
the skilled novelist, it is difficult to say in 
which character John E. Barrett has rendered 
the most distinguished service. He has trod- 
den almost every path of polite literature and 
gathered flowers from them all. I am inclined 
however, to believe that he has cultivated 
the Muses more as a matter of recreation 
than with any view of building up a reputa- 
tion as a poet ; yet there is quite as much 
genuiue poetry in his verse as sound sense 
and keen observation in his prose. His poems 
are vigorously conceived and as yigorously 
executed ; and evince a delicacy and dis- 
crimination of taste, an unvarying kindness 
of heart, and a purity of moral feeling. 
Never awkward, his style is often spirited 
and forcible ; and his poems at no time bear 
the mark of chance or haste. When less 
thau nineteen, Mr. Barrett published a book 
in England which proved a great success, the 
entire edition being exhausted shortly after 
its publication. It was entitled The 
Wrecked Homesteads and depicted the 
Irish Land system in the guise of fiction 
with remarkable accuracy and freshness. 
The British press received it very favorably 
and the conservative Dublin Nation gave it 
a three-column review. The Irishman , since 
merged into The United Ireland , the now 
powerful organ of the Parnell party, likened 
the story to The Mill on the Floss and hailed 
the author as a new writer ot much promise. 
Mr. Barrett’s stories are thefriuit of occasional 
pastimes amid the incessant labors of active 
journalism ; they have been contributed 
mainly to the New York Weekly and the 
Philadelphia Saturday Night. “ The Rising 
Tide,” which appeared originally in The 
Weekly and was republished in the London 
Budget, and “ The Black List,” copied from 
Saturday Night into a Dublin weekly, are 


8 


POETS AND POETRY 


perhaps his best works of fiction. Mr. Barrett 
is endowed with a clear penetrating observa- 
tion ot the salient and picturesque in hu- 
man nature, and his stories are pre-eminently 
stories of character. He has photographed 
human beings as he found them ; and he 
never palliates crime, but invariably leads 
his reader to the admiration of virtue and no- 
bility. “The Romance of Razorville,” 
though possessing less merit than some of 
his other stories, illustrates, with admirable 
effect, the author’s wealth of humor, vast ac- 
quired resources, and original intellectual 
power. 

David Morgan Jones, the lawyer-poet, was 
born in 1843, in the city of New York. Part 
of his boyhood he spent in Wales. He re- 
ceived his education in that country, at the 
Scranton High School, and at the Lewisburg 
University, where he was graduated in 1867. 
In the following year he was admitted to 
practice at the Union County bar, but soon 
removed his office to Wilkes-Barre, where he 
is still actively pursuing his profession. Mr. 
Jones’ course in literature has naturally been 
desultory. While possessing a pure quality 
of poetic talent, it is not often that he is per- 
mitted by the exigencies of his business to 
take from its dusty corner the well-beloved 
lyre, and charm an idle moment with a song. 
As rapidly as they are produced, his poems 
have appeared in the Philadelphia Press and 
other city journals. In 1882, J. B. Lippin- 
cott & Company published Lethe and Other 
Poems , through which Mr. Jones is perhaps 
best known to the public. It had a rapid 
sale and the edition was soon exhausted. 
This volume, however, does not contain the 
best things which he has written. He has 
done better work since for the Boston Pilot 
and other papers. The leading poem of the 
book “Lethe” is not in his best vein. Among 
the shorter pieces, about forty in number, prob- 
ably the most admired is “The Vanished 
Maiden.” At all times Mr. Jones lias 
been in popular demand as poet for public 
celebraions. In this capacity he read be- 
fore the assembled literary societies of Lewis- 
burg University, in 1880, his poem on 


“William Loyd Garrison;” this and that 
other notable creation of his on “Eloquence,” 
together with the poems which have ap- 
peared since the publication of Lethe , would 
warrant a new edition of his works. Not- 
withstanding his own self-depreciation, the 
fact is patent to observers that among the 
very few poetical geniuses which Wyoming 
Valley has produced, Mr. Jones is one of the 
finest and most original. There is only one 
complaint which I have to make against his 
verse, and that fault redounds to its classical 
excellence. There is a peculiar gliding 
movement in his metre, which, while it 
charms the ear, partially defeats the stress 
of the thought; but, beneath the surface, all 
the results of potent imagination are ex- 
hibited. If called upon to make a metaphor, 

I would say that externally his verse is the 
perfect plane of ice which paves a brook — 
brilliant, smooth, transparent, hard: gaze 
but a moment into this ice and you see be- 
low one confusion of delicate imageries and 
wonderful fancies of form. In his poetry, it 
is difficult to discover traces of any distinct 
influence unless it be that of Keats. There 
seems, at first sight, to be a universal grey 
tone to his work ; but interested eyes soon 
discover this effect to be due, in very fact, to 
the richness and complexity of colors. Yet 
he is not a word-painter, though his vocab- 
ulary is large. Indeed, I suspect that an 
epithet is often chosen, not for its pictur- 
esqueness as much as for its euphony. From 
this, however, it must not be concluded that 
he is not a clear reasoner, for never is he 
betrayed into an absurdity. Mr. Jones will 
not reach his merited station in the estimation 
of the public, until readers recognize that he 
is not to be read as versifiers are, hastily and 
carelessly, but with the attention aud loyalty 
that a true poet deserves. 

John S. McGroarty, the poet-editor, is 
young in years, sociable in nature, and un- 
married. Whether or not Euterpe in the 
near future will cease her lyric chords and 
string the amatory cittern, is a question that 
would hardly admit of discussion in the 
province of literary criticism. With an ear 


OF WYOMING VALLEY. 


finely attuned to the delicacies of melody, a 
bright intellect, and a pure taste, Mr. Me- 
Groarty has kept his talents bright by use; 
and many of later productions have the 
strength and finish of a more experienced 
hand. The poet has a heart that can feel for 
the wants, woes, and trials of humanity in 
its humblest and most despised walks : and 
he pours out his soul, in his patriotic verses, 
in strains of touching, sympathetic tender- 
ness. “The Saddened Heart” and “A Lost 
Friend” stand, in some respects, unequaled. 
They are somewhat sad in tone; and, were 
it not the poetic and artistic lemperament to 
feel keenly and instinctively all the emotions 
of life,. I should incline to charge their 
author with moroseness. They are, however, 
so sweet and unpretending, so pure in pur- 
pose and gentle in expression, that they dis- 
arm criticism of all severity. “In Memor- 
iam,” a decoration ode, is a graceful and 
genial rendition of the iambic heptameter 
verse, and at no time during the poem is the 
attention fatigued. His command of rhythm 
is finely ev : dent in “Florence,” a poem 
which contains some of the purest elements 
of harmony and beauty. “Ca3sar” ranks 
with his best work ; it is richly descriptive 
and rhetorical, although the poet is more 
touching in his less labored verses. Mr. Me- 
Groarty’s elegiac poetry is meritorious and 
deserves cordial recognition. It is marked 
by ease and delicate discrimination rather 
than by strength or vigor of conception ; yet 
it has a simple and placid tenderness, a lively 
and observant fancy, and a soft and musical 
versification which can not but impress the 
most careless reader. His poems have been 
published, mainly, in the Philadelphia Times 
and Press, Wilkes-Barre Leader and Record, 
Boston Pilot, Hazleton Plain Speaker, and 
Scranton Republican. The Poets and Poetry 
of Wyoming Valley, compiled and edited by 
Mr. McGroarty last year, is a work of great 
labor. It contains one or more poems 
bv each o.f the better known writers^— 
with a few unfortunate omissions — and 
should occupy a place in every fam- 
ily library in ; Wyoming Valley. Youth 


y 

and maturity have unfolded to Mr. McGroarty 
wide knowledge and broad experience; and, 
since he is yet on the sunny side of life’s 
prime, coming years will doubtless add a 
rarer note to his gamut and his poetic future 
fully vindicate the rich promise of the present. 

Claude G. Whetstone, the poet journalist, 
has passed his novitiate as “an enamored 
architect of airy rhymes,” and is fully dis- 
ciplined for genuine singing. Mr. Whetstone 
is at present employed on the editorial stall 
of the Philadelphia Times ; and. although not, 
strictly speaking, a Wyoming Valley poet, 
he was for a time editorially connected with 
the Hazleton Plain Speaker, and later with 
the Scranton Republican, and has always 
been identified with our local song. As a 
journalist, his editorials have an ease and 
raciness that bear unmistakable marks of 
diversified culture. He has read much and 
thoughtfully, and mingled with society in 
all its phases; and his editorials possess an 
accuracy of statement, a breadth of view, and 
an independence of party nictation that 
make them quite as trustworthy as readable. 
Modest, retiring, and singularly sensitive, 
Mr. Whetstone has always been unwilling 
to place on his verses their real value. He has 
a nervous temperament, a rich imagination, 
a quick sensibility, and his share of that 
melancholy of which poets are made. His 
verses are not characterized for any very 
profound emotion or deep thought ; but they 
haye a perfection of metre, a beauty of dic- 
tion, and a smoothness of finish rarely excelled 
by his fellow bards, and this is much to say 
in these days, when so many clever pipes are 
heard. Mr. Whetstone’s poems are chiefly 
lyrical, and generally of' a pathetic cast. 
They evince a tenderness of thought, a purity 
of feeling, and a love for the beauties of 
nature that rightly lead his readers to con- 
clude that this singer has not dug in vain for 
the genuine ore of poetry. “Two Singers,” 
“After Death,” and “The Poet’s Song” give 
token of a grace of expression, a musical ver- 
sification, and an air of melaucholy tender- 
ness so „ congenial to the, poetical tempera- 
ment. “By the Stream,” a sweet and lux 


10 


POETS AND POETRY 


urious strain of pure description, has been 
set to music and accorded general favor by 
contralto soloists. “Mine Enemy,” “The 
Difference,” and “A Recollection” are del- 
icately conceived and as delicately executed ; 
and “Shadow All,” “Fate,” “All Is Well,” 
and “While We May” are marked by a 
vein of fine moral reflection, and a freedom 
of versification and poetic art. 

Theron Giddings Osborne, better kuown to 
the reading public as “Tom Allen,” was born 
on the shores of the beautiful Lake Wynola, 
in Wyoming County. For some years he has 
taught school ; but at present he is one of the 
staff of the Wilkes-Barre Leader, in which 
paper most of his poems and poetical squibs 
have appeared. His portfolio holds upward 
of sixty original verse compositions. Of 
these, perhaps the most popular is “Annie’s 
Grave;’’ the most admired, “The True 
Muse;” the most poetical, “The Woodland 
Spring,” and the most unique, “After Vaca- 
tion.” While Mr. Osborne may be taken to 
task for his carlessness in technical finish and 
impatience of legitimate structure, nothing 
is more an evidence of his abundance and or- 
iginality, than this very readiness to trans- 
gress the lesser rules of versification. .His 
“True Muse,” an admirable poem, resembles 
an edifice which the artist has permitted to 
rise hap-hazard from its base. The result is 
neither Ionic nor Gothic, Romanesque nor 
Queen Anne, but a novel, though beautiful, 
confounding and mingling of all orders and 
decorations of architecture. It is in critical, 
not in creative faculty, that he is untrained. 
Fluent as is his diction and exuberant his 
thought, too much of his work betrays lax 
self-judgment. Only after persistent and 
skillful practice on the part of the rider, will 
a Comanche mustang begin to exhibit the 
points of Attic Pegasus. Many of his compo- 
sitions are humorous and deftly satirical, and 
show what an able hand the author has with 
which to treat the absurdities of contempor- 
ary customs, politics, and science. These 
prove, better than do his earnest productions, 
the extent of his fine vocabulary and his 
power for apt phrasing. But it is not here 


that Mr. Osborne’s true province lies. These 
spurious little off shoots, I trust, are but the 
tangled growth at the base of the daisy’s 
stem. The flower is just beginning to blossom 
above them in its white and golden hues. 
The real inward character of his poesy can- 
not yet be determined ; but his muse, I 
shrewdly suspect, like the bride of “That son 
of Italy who tried to blow e’er Dante came,” 
is attired in two costumes, — an outer radiant 
garment of gayety and mirth, and the con- 
cealed inner sackcloth of thought and aus- 
terity. 

Miss lone Kent is not of an uncertain age ; 
she is young. Naturally, then, the biographi- 
cal data for this sketch are few. She was 
born in St. Paul, and at the age of seven be- 
came fatherless. With her mother she then 
came east, and has lived since that time in the 
country. Her home is at Waymart, Wayne 
County ; but at present she is situated in New 
York city, where she is a student of art at the 
Cooper Institute. One year, too, she spent in 
the studio of a portrait paiuter at Biugham- 
ton. Miss Kent’s poetical productions have 
appeared, either under her proper name or the 
assumed one of “Francis Hale Barnard,” in 
the Wilkes-Barre Record, Toledo Blade, 
Northern Christian Advocate, Phrenological 
Journal, Literary Life, Chautauquan, and 
Peterson's Magazine. The titles of these 
poems are very suggestive of the character of 
her muse. Here are some of them, — “ One 
Perfect Day,” “At Twilight,” “Beside the 
River,” “A Dreamland Tryst,” and “ When 
Summer Comes.” Miss Kent aims to be 
the interpretress or summer’s moods and 
appearances. She is versed in the nomen- 
clature of scenery ; she faints in the 
hazy perspectives of uncertain landscapes; 
she sympathetically throbs before the pulsing 
flame of dawn, and lingers with regret over 
the wasting beauties of sunset. I suspect 
that among these luxuries of the soul she 
moves in true poetic despair, for the poet’s 
spirit, in its moments of inspiration, is a sad 
mingling of exaltation and dejection. It is 
at first exalted, when the wordless idea comes 
bounding along the nerves ; it shoots to de 


11 


OF WYOMING VALLEY. 


jection, when the lips vainly move to convey 
an adquate expression of that idea. Her 
poetry is of that golden kind which would 
win from Edgar Allen Poe the praise of hav- 
ing beauty for its sole object; but whether 
beauty and truth are identical, I presume 
Miss Kent, has not sought to argue. Never- 
theless, with her, as with Messrs. Osborne and 
Powell and “Steeuie Grey/’ it is very ap- 
parent that beauty is the end which she un- 
consciously struggles to attain. In these 
young writers there is no approach to weary 
didacticism; all their feeling, if not their ex- 
pression, is warm and sensuous. In Miss 
Kent, more than in the others, one observes 
that excited fervor of attempt which signifies 
how heavily the burden of the unintelligible 
weighs upon her. What she has accom- 
plished, however, betrays a more careful im- 
press of simplicity and taste than is to be dis- 
cerned in the work of most of our younger 
poets. Her artistic sense is more acute ; she 
applies her brush more thoughtfully and 
carefully, and uses her pencil with greater 
accuracy. 

William George Powell, the son of a well- 
known Welsh bard, is one of our youngest 
and most promising wi iters of verse. He was 
born at Scranton ; spent one year at the Mil- 
itary Academy at West Point; graduated 
from the Pottsville High School in 1886, and 
is at present engaged in teaching. He has a 
well-stored mind, a compass of invention, and 
a luxuriance of poetic fancy. Mr. Powell’s 
faculty for singing is well disciplined; his 
verses are replete with classical allusions, 
aud always fashioned after the best models of 
poetic art. Occasionally his stanzas are so 
subtilely constructed that they lose that sweet 
and unstudied simplicity which pleases the 
ear and touches the heart of the reader. He 
has written eight sonnets which are shrewd, 
caustic, careful, and manifest energy of 
thought and condensed felicity of expression ; 
they represent widely different grades of mo- 
tive and execution, and are sometimes stiff 
and labored, but never violate the canons of 
taste and criticism. Of these, “The Death of 
Burns,” “Longfellow in Italy,” and “Shel- 


ley’s Prometheus Unbound” probably best 
indicate the classical correctness and closeness 
of his style; although in several other of his 
sonnets, there are some delicate touches aud 
pleasing descriptions. In “The Welsh Harp” 
aud ‘‘The Dream” he marshals his dac- 
tylic measures with the ease and precision 
of a trained lieutenant; they seem to 
have beeu dictated by real pulses of feel- 
ing, and are full of lyrical melody and 
natural tenderness. The ode “To Venus,” 
published in The Saturday Argus is marked 
by avein of fine feeling and happy expression. 
And as the half-gleeful, half-proDhetic carols 
of the bluebird on a fair March morning an- 
nounce the return of the feathered songsters, 
these early liquid, bubbling notes by Mr. 
Powell herald a new voice in the Wyoming 
Valley choir, from whom maturer strains are 
not unlikely to flow. 

Miss Hattie Clay, now a teacher in the 
Scranton public schools, has, under the as- 
sumed name “Steeuie Grey,” been a frequent 
contributor of poetry to the The New York 
Tribune , Philadelphia Press, Peterson's Mag- 
azine, aud the newspapers of northeastern 
Pennsylvania. Her early published verses 
are rather faulty in artistic respects, the 
author seeming to prefer the flash of 
momentary inspiration to the severer but 
more enduring labor of correction and 
rejection. All young writers must, I sup- 
pose, pass through a moulting process, and 
during this time descordant notes may 
be expected. Her later verses, however, 
show that she has emerged fully feathered 
and iu a better voice. “The Angel’s Gift,” 
the most poetical of her productions, is clear, 
natural, ingenious, and vigorous. In this, as 
in “Adam’s First Wife,” her vivacity ofstyle 
and sense of unique design are richly evident. 
“Daisies,” “June,” and several other of her 
descriptive lyrics, have a flow of subtle fancy 
and sonorous versification, which are steeped 
in the flood of ideal beauty. Her amatory 
strains possess traces of real passion, and a 
vein of healthy sentiment and poetic fancy, 
versified with ease and elegance. The poet’s 
cheerful aud amiable disposition is generally 


vz 


POETS AND POETRY 


apparent in her verses ; and, notwithstanding 
their obvious crudities, they always find re- 
sponse in the universal heart. 

Edward A. Niven was born at Cuylersville, 
N. Y., in 1841 ; graduated from Medina Acad- 
emy in 1856, after which he went to New York 
City and entered the mercantile business 
with an uucle ; at about this time he be- 
gan to write short stories and sketches for 
weekly newspapers; from 1861 to 1865, he 
served in the civil war, finishing with Sher- 
man’s march to the sea; during the war he 
wrote weekly letters to the New Y ork Mercury , 
and at its close returned to New York City 
and regularly entered journalism; after a 
period of several years’ reportorial work on 
the metropolitan daily papers, he connected 
himself with the Genius of Liberty; subse- 
quently he served as city editor of the Savan- 
nah News, Minneapolis Free Press, Deluth 
Tribune, and Scranton Republican ; while con- 
nected with the News, of Savannah, he was 
associated with Joel Chandler Harris, author 
of well-known “Uncle Remus’ ” plantation 
verses. Mr. Niven has at different times 
served as special correspondent in the New 
York, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina 
State Legislatures, and frequently written 
letters from the coal fields to the Herald, 
World, Star, and Sun, of New York City; 
the Times, Press, News, and Telegram , of Phil- 
adelphia ; and the Tribune and Times, of 
Chicago. As a general correspondent he has 
been in all parts of the Union, and his ac- 
quaintance with public men and the editorial 
fraternity is extensive. In 1876 he founded 
the Leader, at Pittston, afterwards merged 
into the Union-Leader, on which paper he 
has since been principally employed. While 
Mr. Niven’s prose writings are not without 
their points of excellence, his strongest work 
has been done at the bidding of the Muses ; 
and many of his shorter lyrics are not un- 
worthy the pen of a laureate. In his poetical 
writings, he happily unites strength with 
grace, and originality with dramatic talent ; 
and his perfection of the art of graceful and 
fluent expression is finely apparent in all his 
lyrical efforts. His words and sentences, al- 


though placed with seeming artlessness, are 
always thoughtfully chosen and judiciously 
varied. “Baby Grace,” the fairest flower in 
his poetic chaplet, has a tone of lofty senti- 
ment, and celebrates a father’s affections with 
unusual grace and tenderness. “Forebod- 
ing,” pitched in somewhat the same key, has 
all the exquisite versification of John S. Mc- 
Groarty,and the pathetic tenderness of Claude 
G. Whetstone. His decoration odes are 
among the most melodious specimens of ele- 
giac poetry in our local song; but his ludi- 
crous and satirical verses are greatly inferior 
to his more serious poems. His comic opera, 
“The Smith Family,” has some flashes of 
genuine sunny humor, and has been produced 
on the stage with a fair degree of favor, al- 
though it has no great literary merit, and 
scarcely ranks with his best work. 

It is to be profoundly regretted that Mrs. 
Verona Coe Holmes, of West Pittston, is per- 
mitted by the public — the Wyoming Valley 
public at least — to continue in the obscurity 
which at present shrouds her life. After 
“Edith May,” Pennsylvania has had no 
poetess with a better claim to recognition. 
Mrs. Holmes is a native of Michigan, where 
she resided until grown to womanhood. Her 
father was a clergyman, who, consequent to 
his calling, was often obliged to shift his hab- 
itation. Miss Coe was educated at the Kala- 
mazoo Female College, and for some years was 
engaged in teaching. It was about twenty 
years ago that she came to West Pittston, but 
before that time her productions began to ap- 
pear in the Chicago Tribune and other west- 
ern journals. Interested observers of our 
local literature will be surprised some day, 
when the volume of her collected poems ap- 
pears, as it in duty ought, to find that she has 
written so much ; they already know that she 
has written well. There are so many of her 
pieces that reach the plane of high excellence, 
that in this cramped sketch I hesitate as to 
which I should give the preference of men- 
tion. “Late Summer,” which came out in 
Theodore Tilton’s Golden Age, is a tender 
and subtly descriptive lyric. “In the Fall” 
and “Mabelle” appeared years ago in Peter ■ 


OF WYOMING VALLEY. 


13 


son's Magazine. Other poems appeared in 
Moore's Rural New-Yorker. But it is to the 
Hon. Theodore Hart that the most honor ac- 
crues in connection with the publication of 
Mrs. Holmes’ poems, for by tar the greater 
number have appeared in his journal, The 
Pittston Gazette. To convey to readers un- 
acquainted with the quality and range of her 
work an adequate impression of its character, 
is a difficult pleasure, for it is painful to 
think that such rare genius still remains un- 
suspected in the midst of a literature-loving 
population. Her poems have such a quiet, 
modest, yet self-confideut bearing, that criti- 
cism has no excuse for cavilling. They have 
a sweetness and intellectual strength to be 
found elsewhere only in the poems of the 
lamented Helen Hunt Jackson. There is no 
parleying with Art here, for Art is the obed- 
ient servant of her feeling ; and her feeling 
is not extravagantly impulsive, for it is softly 
subdued by the calm resignation of religious 
faith. Genius Mrs. Holmes undoubtedly has, 
and genius of a whiter light than most of the 
poetesses, known to the wide country, can 
display. It is the disadvantage of the privacy 
of her career that she has not been forced by 
critics to bestow more labor on the artistic 
polish of her stanzas. Her caesuras occur 
sometimes with alarming frequency ; but they 
are uniformly well managed and turned to 
good account, as in the case of “Siste Viator.” 
Sometimes, too, she allows stanzas to run into 
each other. But these are trivial errors. 
The originality and sincerity of her inspira- 
tion are unimpugned. “Restored” has a del- 
icacy and exquisiteuess of recital almost in- 
comparable; but the best of it is that the 
same can be said of so much of her work. 
The public, too, must understand this; and it 
is the earnest expectation of her present small 
circle of admirers that the complete edition 
of her valuable poems will soon be in press. 

Dr. John T. Doyle was born in Dublin, 
Ireland, December 9, 1837; educated in pri- 
vate schools and at Trinity College, 
Dublin; giaduated in surgery at the 
Royal College of Surgeon-, at Dublin, 
and for a time served as assistant sur- 


geon in third Madras army corps; for 
eighteen months he was in the service of the 
East India Company, when he resigned and 
entered private practice in Australia ; he re- 
returned to Ireland in 1863, and four years 
later came to America and settled at Wilkes- 
Barre, where he has since resided. For sev- 
eral years he was connected with the London 
Saturday Review and the Illustrated London 
News, contributing various literary articles, 
and descriptive sketches of scenes in Austra- 
lia. In an article entitled “Prospects of the 
Irish at Home and Abroad,” published many 
years ago, he prophetically demonstrated the 
land question in Irish matters long before the 
present leader, Parnell, was at all heard 
of. Dr. Doyle is a good versifier but 
not a great poet; his style is some- 
times turgid and often monotonous, 
lie has, however,an ear for metrical harmony; 
and in his lighter verses, he lays bare the 
springs of human action with marked ability. 
In healthy tone and natural Irish wit, these 
humorous ditties are not unlike some of Tom 
Moore’s lighter verses. The Doctor has also 
written serious pieces, which, if not highly 
poetical, are harmonious in tone and artistic 
in execution. Of these, “The Sunbeam and the 
Brook” is the most smoothly versified; it has 
a musical versification, some delicate fancy, 
and seems to flow freely from nature. 

Patrick F. Durkan was born and educated 
in the town of Swinford, County Mayo, Ire- 
land. He evinced in youth astrong propensity 
for literary pursuits, and began to write at an 
early age for the newspapers of his native 
country. He came to this countrv for the 
first time in 1860, but returned the same year 
and published a small volume of poems, 
which was favorably reviewed by the national 
press, particularly by The Irishman. After a 
two years’ stay in Ireland, he went to Eng- 
land, where he engaged for a time in merchan- 
tile pursuits. In 1865 he returned to Ireland, 
and the following summer sailed for America. 
He taught school in Susquehanna County for 
several terms, and in May, 1869, settled in 
Scranton, where he continued to live and 
teach up to June, 1886, when he resigned, and 



* 



14 


POETS AND POETRY 


moved to Philadelphia, his present residence. 
Mr. Durkan’s verses are largely the inspira- 
tion of his native island home, some of which 
are humorous, witty, genial, and full of the 
tun and frolic of Irish life. “Alice O’Con- 
nor,” the most admired of his poems, is spir- 
ited and forcible. “The Cracker Boy,” “Hon- 
esty,” and “Angels of Earth” have a vein of 
moral reflection, some ingenious thought, and 
occasionally a striking imagery. “John’s 
Tour in Ireland” is unique, but protracted at 
too great length. “ Irish Melodies,” and 
“ Father John,” his best poems, have an easy 
and flowing versification ; the former shows 
him to be not only a luxurious, but also a 
melodious singer, and many lines in the latter 
are rich, ornate, and highly poetical. 

Mrs. Annabel Morris Holvey, of West Pitts- 
ton, a native of New York State, came to the 
Wyoming Valley in 1876. Prior to that time 
her poems and prose sketches were contributed 
to the Albany Evening Jar nal and other New 
York papers. Since then her graceful lyrics 
have appeared mostly in the Pittston Gazette, 
some in Wilkes-Barre and Scranton papers. 
They are distinguished by delicate imagery, 
depth of sentiment, and a fluent but some- 
times careless flow of melody that show the 
born singer whose thoughts flow naturally to 
music. “The Pansy’s Message” tells a 
pathetic story of war times in tender verse. 
“ Starlight,” “ Twilight Musings,” “ Passion 
Week,” and “ Dividing the Church ” carry 
the inspiration born of profound feeling. 
“ Christmas Eve ” is worthy of Carleton’s 
music, and “ Outcast,” probably her strongest 
poem, is full of passion and power. She has 
written some short stories and occasional 
articles for newspapers in and out of the 
valley. 

Although not a poet of the first dimensions. 
Dr. P. J. Higgins knows what good poetry is, 
and can write it. That he has frequently 
courted the Muses is evident from the fact 
that his portfolio contains over one hundred 
verse-compositions. [ Fifteen of these are trans- 
lations from the German, Irish, and French 
poets. Of sonnets, odes, and Troubadour 
songs, he has written six of each. The re- 


maining selections are chiefly lyrical, includ- 
ing songs of labor and love, hymns, and pa- 
triotic, temperance, and sentimental pieces. 
Several poems are written in the Irish 
brogue, and a few in the original Irish lan- 
guage. The translations have an easy smooth- 
ness and correctness of versification, and 
give token ot a familiarity with several 
modern tongues. Of his sonnets, the one ou 
“ Sorrow” is best fashioned ; of his odes, “ To 
Purity” is the choicest; and of his Troubadour 
lyrics, “ The Boating Song” is the sweetest. 
“ Hope and the Rose,” “ Bear Up,” and “ Ye 
P etty Birds,” his cleverest lyrical selections, 
are marked by melody, ease, and sincere feel- 
ing. The Doctor’s poetry is frequently defi- 
cient in fire and energy, its sameness often mak- 
ing it tedious; but his versification is free 
and souorous, and his creation of scenes and 
objects rich aud unique. 

While a student at Trinity College, Hart- 
ford, Connecticut, R. B. Brundage sometimes 
wrote verse-compositions, two of which ap- 
peared in Mr. John S. McGroarty’s collec- 
tion. Neither selection evinces very much 
true creative genius ; but they are written 
with infinite prettiuess, and do not fall short 
of a certain standard of grace and correct- 
ness. “ Immortality” contains some pleasing 
poetical language and dazzling metaphors, 
and “ Remembrance” has a soft and musical 
versification, 

J. Andrew Boyd has written a few verses 
which deserve cordial recognition and meri- 
torious mentiou. While some of them are 
not altogether in harmony with the canons 
of versification, they have a vein of pleas- 
antry and a strain of pure and fervent pas- 
sion. “Excelsior,” published in Pack, is a 
light, fantastic effusion ; “ Hidden Grief” con- 
tains some forcible, but awkward lines ; 
“Cometh the Night” breathes a healthy 
moral feeling, Out the poet is diffuse, and not 
over careful in the construction of his sen- 
tences ; “ Four- Leafed Clover,” is a hasty 
aud spontaneous production, and “Con- 
traries,” the most poetical ot his fancies, is in- 
termingled with genuine pathos. 


OF WYOMING VALLEY. 


15 


Rev. M. J. Morgan was born in the town 
of Caranarvon, Wales, in 1861. The promi- 
nent seats of instruction he matriculated in 
have been the Cynnog Grammar School, 
North Wales; the Llandovery College, South 
Wales ; and the Theological Seminary, of 
Princeton, New Jersey. He began preaching 
quite young, and came to this country as a 
minister of the gospel. After a reconnoitering 
tour through the States of (New York, New 
Jersey, Vermont, and Pennsylvania, he 
settled at Sugar Notch, where he continued to 
preach for two years. He is at present located 
at Carbondale, having received and accepted 
a call from achureh there in January, 1887. 
Mr. Morgon has moralized in verse on such 
subjects as “ Faith,” “ Hope,” “ Life,” “Mid- 
night,” “ Beyond,” “ Somewhere,” “ Life’s 
Morning,” “ Night Thoughts,” and “ Science 
and Faith.” These are strains of tender pen- 
siveness, and give assurance of a genial and 
pious spirit; but the poet’s fine feeling, grace- 
ful fancy, and poetic diction are best indi- 
cated in an ode “ To an Uprooted Tree” and 
a fragmentary lyric entitled “ In a Ceme- 
tery.” Though immature, several of his pieces 
contain strong poetical thought, which gives 
promise of rarer future notes. His early verse 
is but the bud of the rose, whose complete in- 
florescence will, I doubt not, reveal a goodly 
quantity of poetic beauty and fragrance. 

The late James Law, of Pittston, wrote 
several poems in the Scottish dialect which 
show him to have been possessed of a 
truly poetical imagination. Mr. Law was 
born in Scotland, and came to America and 
settled in Canada when he was a young man. 
Just before the outbreak of the civil war, he 
removed to Scranton, where he lived for a few 
years ; he next took up his residence at 
Pittston, where he continued to live up to the 
time of his death, which occurred last year. 
Always actively engaged in the duties of his 
occupation, Mr. Laws’ writing was merely 
accidental pastime. He possessed a vast 
fund of information ; but, being diffident, 
he was always reluctant to give his 
productions to the printer. Among his 
best pieces are “Auld Uncle Wallie,” “My 


Ain Cannie Mither,” and “Lines on a Dead 
Canary;” these selections give token of an 
inborn poetic elasticity and a sparklingly 
original style. Several of his cleverest 
poems have been published since his death 
by Hon. Theodore Hart in the Pittston 
Gazette. 

One is often compelled to regret that 
young writers are so prone to coin their 
heart-pangs into marketable verse ; yet the 
melancholy strains of Mr. T. P. Ryder are 
so soft and plantive that the vein of sadness, 
which runs through them, is oftentimes their 
chief charm. Mr. Ryder has written a num- 
ber of light verses ; but he is poetical only in 
his more serious productions. His pieces 
have appeared in the local papers and in the 
Philadelphia Times and Detroit Free Press. 
His versification in defective; but for melan- 
choly tenderness, his verses are not altogether 
unlike those of the late Father Ryan, the 
poet-priestofthesouth. “Light and Shadow’’ 
and “A Memory” are tender and touching, 
and evince a sensitive feeling and a beautiful 
poetic vein. 

Lawyer C, P. Kidder, of Wilkes-Barre, has 
written some verses which show marks of 
genius, but they betray the author’s want of 
taste and artistic sense. His poem on “ Gar- 
field” is a noble strain of fervent passion, 
pregnant with celestial fire. “ Old Yets,” 
a decoration ode, is not without merit, but it 
contains a number of crude and extravagant 
lines. 

Like that rare exotic feathered visitant, 
the orchard starling, the voice of Miss Alice 
Smith is seldom heard. Miss Smith is a 
teacher in the West Pittston public schools 
and has published only a few of her verses. 
She is not an original thinker, but possesses the 
happy art of presenting good thoughts in 
pleasant and impressive language ; and she has 
a tender, humane sympathy which warms 
her writings and brings her near to her 
readers. “ Cui Bono,” the best-known of her 
productions, has some pleasing sentiment and 
flue feeling. 

Timothy Parker, now in his eighty-first 
year, is an Englishman by birth, his maternal 


16 


POETS AND POETRY 


ancestors having belonged to the Common- 
wealth, or Parliamentary party. He came to 
Wilkes-Barre in 1862, and since that time he 
has been a frequent contributor to the local 
papers. Mr. Parker’s verses contain some 
fresh descriptions, and suggest the glamour of 
forests, mountains, and lakes. 

Dr. R. H. Tubbs, when a young man, fre- 
quently wrote verses for the Lawrenceville 
Sentinel , edited by John C. Knox, who was 
afterward a judge of the Supreme Court. 
Dr. Tubbs was graduated from the Medical 
College of Woodstock, Vermont, in 1844, 
since which time he has practiced medicine 
in Wyoming Valley, writing occasionally 
both in prose and verse for the Plymouth 
Star, and other local newspapers. For several 
years he was lecturer of chemistry and botany 
at Wyoming Seminary ; and he has occasion- 
ally prepared literary and scientific lectures, 
which have been delivered before literary 
societies. 

Fred Shelley Ryman was born April 26, 
1858, at Dallas, and attended Wyoming Sem- 
inary and Cornell University each for three 
years. While a student at the latter institu- 
tion, he wrote tor the Cornell Era , and later 
was connected with the Binghamton Leader. 
Mr. Ryman’s present residence is Lockport, 
New York, where he is engaged at special 
literary work for The Occult World. His 
productions have been printed in the Arkan- 
saw Traveler, Puck , Judqe, Gordell's Chicago 
Sun, Texas Siftings, and the New York Mer- 
cury. One needs to read but a tew lines of 
Mr. Ryman’s work to acquaint himself with 
the fact that this writer is a close student of 
the poems of Lord Byron ; for the same pro- 
tound morbidness which pervades the pages 
of the author of “Don Juan” is every- 
where apparent in the verses of his ad- 
miring pupil. Some of his pieces are 
marked by quaint humor, acute observation, 
and shrewd, sarcastic sayings; but they are 
often so caustic as to produce an unpleasant 
effect on the minds of thoughtful readers. 
“Ostler Joe,” a well sustained narrative, 
which has some of the qualities of Will 
Carleton’s ballads, is sadly marred by an af- 


fectatious prelude and ,a coarse postique. 
“Antony’s Last Ante” is smoothly versified, 
but many of the lines are scarcely more than 
echoes. “Is it So?”, a Ivric, and “The 'Night’ 
of Michael Angelo,” a sonnet, are his best 
selections; the former has a vein of better 
feeling than is found elsewhere in his work, 
and the latter, though immature, has some 
richness of fancy and invention. Many 
American youths have been caught in the 
whirlpool of a foolishly extravagant ador- 
ation of Lord Byrou, but none so violently as 
Mr. Ryman. “The Pleasures of Life,” pub- 
lished at Ithaca in 1879, in the most consid- 
erable stream that has yet gushed from the 
exuberant intellect of this still youthful and 
excusable aspirant. To Byron we are to as- 
sign all the merits and demerits of this boy- 
ish attempt in verse; to Byron, the audacity 
in the perpetration of doggerel ; to Byron, the 
reckless, braggadocio expression of trite aph- 
orisms; to Byron, the careless, saucy ped- 
antry of preface, mottoes, and fool notes. 
Byron, in a word, is the cause, and Byron 
the permeating influence of this wretch.edly 
humorous and weakly didactical metrical 
effort. 

Being of a rather retiring disposition, 
Alfred S. Greene has succeeded in shunning 
opportunities which would have made him 
better known as a writer of verse. Somewhat 
like that rare voiced royal minstrel, the her- 
mit-thrush, he has preferred to try thestrings 
of his instrument at leisure and in solitary 
places. Mr. Greene came to Wilkes-Barre 
from New York in 1869, and has since resided 
there, having previously been engaged in 
mercantile pursuits, mostly in the West In- 
dian trade. His verses, with the exception 
of two poems published in Potter's American 
Illustrated Magazine , have all been printed 
in the local papers. His best efforts are “The 
Wyoming Monument,” “On the Centennial 
Celebration of the Massacre of Wyoming,” 
“Dick Benson’s Last Yarn,” “The Little Tin 
Pail,” “The Love of Children,” and “The 
Storm.” The first and second of these ap- 
peared in Potter's Magazine for July, 1878, 
and contain some delicate touches and clever 


OF WYOMING VALLEY. 17 


descriptions. “Dick Benson’s Last Yarn’’ is 
a lengthy narrative poem, but well sustained 
throughout. “The Storm’’ aod “The Love of 
of Children’’ are commonplace verses, expres- 
sive of pure and ennobling sentiments ; but 
the author’s clear poetic feeling is best dis 
played in “The Little Tin Pail,” a poem 
which is marked by great tenderness and 
melody. 

Misses Bertha and Ella Millard, of New 
Columbus, are ladies of refined literary 
tastes. Besides supervising the work of a 
farm, which they have operated for some 
years, they have, from time to time, written 
tender anu simple songs which are instinct 
with the true sentiments of fireside love and 
joy. Their poems flow freely from nature; 
and the singing birds that nest about the 
hedges of their fields, the quiet brook that 
traces its way lazily through a meadow just 
beyond their rural home, and the sighing 
branches of trees that margin the lanes and 
roadsides, all find voice in their sougs. Their 
verses are little more than orchard notes, but 
they are always soft and plaintive and some- 
times bright and animated. 

Rev. Charles Holland Kidder evidently be- 
lieves that “books quicken, strengthen, aud 
perfect a spiritual life.” Rarely a minister 
ot the gospel — or any person, for that matter, 
other than a professional litterateur — can be 
found who has given so much attention to 
books and authors as Charles Holland Kid- 
der ; and more rarely still, one possessing his 
fine combination of high intellectual qual- 
ities. Mr. Kidder was born at Wilkes-Barre, 
December 27, 1846, and educated at Yale Col- 
lege. He was graduated from the West Phil- 
adelphia Protestant Episcopal Divinity school 
in 1877 ; and he has since, at different times, 
officiated as rector of Episcopal churches at 
Pottsville and Wilkes-Barre. It is only nat- 
ural that one possessing his diversified cul- 
ture and wonderful command of easy lan- 
guage should sometimes write for the press. 
His thoughts “too deep for tears” have oc- 
casionally found vent in light, fantastic 
rhymes. These are sometimes wanting in 
salient points, but they are always well ex- 


ecuted and are pure and elevating in their 
tone and influence. 

Thomas J. Ham, of Honesdale, has written 
some verses which are marked by great vigor 
as well as beauty and pathos. Among these 
are “Lips of Clay,” “Nothing in Vain,” “The 
Faithful Heart,” and an elegiac poem written 
on the death of John Brown. His verses are 
often hasty and spontaneous, but they usually 
have a harmony ot versification, richness of 
natural description, pathetic tenderness, and 
a vein of moral sentiment and original 
thought. Mr. Ham seldom aims high in his 
metrical compositions, and he seldom tails. 
His John Brown elegy is an outj ouriug of 
the most delicate poetical feelings trom a 
keen and sympathetic heart. “Lips of Clay,” 
aaother of his graceful effusions, is tender, 
original, and melodious. Mr. Ham is a 
clever journalist, and the writer of a good 
many tart, racy, and pungent editorials. His 
historical sketches of Wayne County repre- 
sent unwearied research and are quite as ar- 
tistic as reliable. 

Dr. L. Byron Avery, of Centremoreland, 
Wyoming County, and Mrs. Mary B. Richart, 
formerly of Pittston, have both written medi- 
ocre verse. Dr. Avery learned the printer’s 
trade in the Wyoming Democrat office, at 
Tunkhannock, and afterward studied medi- 
cine. He was graduated from a New York 
Medical College, but has never given much 
attention to the practice of his profession. 
He has usually written under the assumed 
name of “Nat Zykes.” To Mrs. Richart be- 
longs the honor of having named the beauti- 
ful Lake Wynola. Having visited it many 
years ago, and charmed with the scen- 
ery which surrounded it, she wrote a 
short prose legend of the lake for the Pittston 
Gazette , which established the present name. 
Mrs. Richart has also written a legend of the 
lake in verse, but it has not yet been pub- 
lished. 

The Welsh inhabitants of the United States 
cling with singular tenacity to the traditions 
and customs of their fatherland. Poetry and 
song, the national heir-looms for ages, have 
their devoted guardians wherever the lan- 


18 


POETS AND POETRY 


guage is spoken. Irish, as pure Erse, has al- 
most entirely ceased to be heard : Cornish died 
a hundred years ago; Gaelic and Breton 
have severely altered under the corrosion of 
change ; but the Welsh utterance still retains 
all the vigor and purity of its original phrase. 
No language is better adapted than theWelsh 
for the expression of feeling. Such is its 
plasticity and energy, that any species of 
emotion, from tenderest sentiment to raging 
wrath, can give vent to itself in correspond- 
ing sounds of pure vocalic sweetness, or grat- 
ing gutteral harshness. The verse can sing 
in low harmony to the tinkling of a rivulet, 
or echo with equal resonance the clamor of a 
mountain storm. Some stanzas may consist 
of no letters but vowels and trills, while in 
others the consonants may crowd so thickly 
as seemingly to defy pronunciation. The 
tone of utterance, as this indicates, may vary 
from delicate Tuscan to course Teutonic ; the 
words have forms as numerous as can be sup- 
plied by the moods of the Latin, together with 
the euphonic changes as complete as can be 
furnished by the Greek. It is not wonderful 
that such a language should have so rich a 
poetical literature, but it is strange that the 
range of composition is so narrow. The 
poems of Wales are nearly all included in 
four divisions, — sacred, didactic, heroic, aud 
lyric poetry ; and yet, it is a literature whose 
dawn is dated by Druidical myth, and which 
is still in the fervor and perfection of its 
sunny afternoon. Its mid-day glory was in 
the Twelfth Century, when, as Thierry ob- 
serves, the Celts lived on poety. Then it 
was that Edward First, in order to subdue 
the patriotism and valor of the people, issued 
that horrible proscription which put all the 
bards to death, and ruined what at that time 
was the finest civilization on the globe. The 
influence of Celtic legend and poetry on Eng- 
lish thought and expression has not until re- 
cently been adequately considered, and is as 
yet but imperfectly estimated. Since Mat- 
thew Arnold and Henri Taine have begun to 
study the subject, and special professorships 
of Celtic Literature have been established at 
the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, it 


is evident that here is an important force 
which philosophical criticism has hitherto 
failed to calculate. To make the following 
sketches more lucid, I must precede them 
with a few comments on the bardic customs 
of the Cymrv, and their methods of versifica- 
tion. The “Four and Twenty Measures'’ 
composing the whole of Welsh prosody have 
remained uualtered since they were thus es- 
tablished by David ab Edmund at Carmar- 
then in 1451. A close examination of exam- 
ples of these measures disclosed to me some 
interesting peculiarities of structure. The 
verse is syllabic, not accentual. In some 
oases I found a triple rhyme extending the 
whole length of a page ; in other cases the al- 
literation is so intricate as to be wholly in- 
comprehensible to a novice. Of the great 
variety of poems of strange construction and 
individual name possessing no counterpart 
in English verse, perhaps the most celebrated 
is the Englyn, a four-line poem of thirty-one 
syllables so exacting in metres, rhymes, aud 
alliteration, as to make its composition a 
task of extreme difficulty. The American 
public is well acquainted by this time with 
the character of the Eisteddfod, that grand 
institution which, from its founding by 
Caswallon in the days of Caesar to the pres- 
ent, has been the mainstay of the oldest of 
existing tongues. Originally, Eisteddfods 
were sessions of the bards alone, but the same 
now includes essayists and singers. The 
greatest of these art tournaments — as such 
they might be called — ever held in this coun- 
try was that of 1875, at Hyde Park, which 
lasted for two days. The lists were under 
the great Concord tent, procured for the occa- 
sion, ard the six meetings were attended by 
assemblages averaging in number five thous- 
and people. Eisteddfods have always been 
of frequent occurrence in this regiou, but it is 
only at the principal ones that the leading bar- 
dic contest is for “a chair," to win which is 
the highest renown a Welsh bard can attain. 
Accompanying the “chairing" of a bard aud 
other features of an Eisteddfod, are quaint 
Druidic ceremonies which it is not to mv pur- 
pose to describe here. One little evplana- 


OF WYOMING VALLEY. 


tion, however, I will insert: Not all poets 
are bards. To be a bard, a poet must pass 
,his novitiate as a successful amateur, and re- 
ceive his degree and a pseudonym with much 
traditional pomp at the hands of the Arch 
, Druid, of Wales, or of the Chair-Bard, dele- 
gated by him to confer that honor. Bards, 
further, may be divided into two classes, 
those who have wou “chairs,” and those who 
have not. Wyoming Valley can boast of a 
few chair-bards, a great number of bards, 
and a population of novitiates. I have made 
researches concerning the most meritorious of 
all these, but being unacquainted with the 
Welsh language the notices are necessarily 
brief and barren of any criticism. Rev. J. P. 
Harris (Ieuan Ddu) is the author of a sacred 
drama entitled “Joseph and his Brethren,” 
and is a very ready composer of Englyns. 
Of his songs, the most popular is one on the 
death of Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Harris is a 
Baptist clergyman who came from Wales in 
1840. In war times he ministered to a con- 
gregation at Hyde Park, but at present he is 
pastor of the English Baptist Church at Nan- 
ticoke. Rev. Joseph E. Davis, now deceased, 
although the author of a hundred hymns, is 
best known by his productions in prose. One 
of his books is entitled The Religions of the 
World, but his great work was a System of 
Theology, in four bulky volumes. The opin- 
ions and conclusions of the venerable divine 
are soundly Orthodox, and confirmatory of 
the Calvinism he preached. His remains are 
interred at Hyde Park, where most of his life 
labor centered. Rev. John “Gwrhyd” Lewis 
is a graduate of Carmarthen College; he 
came to this country in 1878, and is at present 
pastor of the Welsh Congregational Church, 
of Wilkes-Barre. Although it is claimed 
.that, being in the prime of life, he has not 
put forth his greatest efforts in poetry, Mr. 
Lewis is a “chair-bard,” than whom there is 
none more honored. His principal poems — 
“Joshua,” a heroic of several thousand lines, 
“Garfield,” and “Cleopatra” — are accounted 
to be perfectly classical and notable for their 
rich and careful imagination. Rev. T. C. 
Edwards, (Cynoni'ardd), of Kingston, owing 


to his elocutionary powers, is probably the 
best known Welshman of Wyoming Valley. 
He, like Mr. Lewis, is a graduate of Carmar- 
then College, and came to this country as a 
Welsh Congregational minister. His first 
charge, in 1870, was the church at Brookfield, 
Ohio, but in a short time he came to Wyom- 
ing Valley, and situated first at Wilkes- 
Barre and then at Kingston, where he resides 
at present as pastor of the Welsh Congrega- 
tional Church, of Edwardsville, and profes- 
sor of elocution at Wyoming Seminary. Mr. 
Edwards has on two occasions won “chair 
prizes,” first at an Eisteddfod at Pittston, on 
the poem “Solomon,” and again at the great 
Eisteddfod of 1875, at Hyde Park, on the 
poem “The Mayflower,” which afterwards 
lent its name to the title of a collection of his 
poems. This volume met with a ready sale, 
and is much prized by Welsh readers, espec- 
ially for its minor poems, among which the 
most popular are “The Babe and the Moon,” 
“The Star of Hope,” and “The Youth.” Two 
of his longer poems are “Cromwell” and “The 
Maniac.” H. M. Edwards, Esq., the present 
District Attorney of Lackawanna County, is 
not more esteemed by the people of Scranton 
for his legal ability than he is by the Welsh 
people of Wyoming Valley for his poetical 
genius. By his contemporary hards he is 
acknowledged to be the most brilliant lyric 
poet of their number, and the opinion is ex- 
pressed by an informed critical taste, that of 
all the poets who have been sketched in these 
papers, none is more pre-eminently a tine 
poet than Mr. Edwards. He came to Scran- 
ton in 1864, as a recent graduate from the 
Normal College of Swansea, and has made 
for himself position as a lawyer, and popular- 
ity as a speaker. As a poet, Mr. Edwards is 
especially noted for his elegies. His longest 
productions are a drama, entitled “Queen 
Esther,” and an ode on “Roger Williams.” 
Mr. David C. Powell, the most original of 
the Welsh bards, came to the valley in 1865, 
and has a wide reputation as an able poet 
and essayist. Among his poetical pieces are 
elegies, soliloquies, and odes of various de- 
scriptions, with titles such as “Happiness,” 


POETS AND POETRY 


20 

“The Outcast Girl/’ “Melchisedec,” “Gen- 
erosity, and “The Grave ot the Babe.” Of 
his numerous prose works the most import- 
ant are the treatise on “Geology,” and a re- 
cent essay on the “Mineral Resources of 
Schuylkill County.” In the beautiful Forty 
Fort Cemetery is a monument over the grave 
of a genius. It is a simple stone erected by 
lamenting bards to preserve the memory of 
David Jenkins (Llwchrog), theWelsh Poe, who 
gave brilliant promise as a poet. He came 
from Wales in 1869, and had written marvel- 
lously on “Love,” “To a River,” and “The 
Eisteddfod.” He met his untimely death in 
a Carbon County coal mine, and was buried 
at Eckley ; but his friends and admirers later 
removed his remains to their present lovely 
resting place. Others who have written 
much Welsh verse, and meritoriously, are 
John H. Powell, David Jones (Dewi Ogle), 
Isaac Benjamin (Bardd Coch), Daniel J. 
Evans (Daniel Dru), and James W. Reese 
(Athenydd), all of Scranton ; Benjamin 
Thomas (Alaw Dulais), of Taylorville ; D. L. 
Richards and Morgan C. Jones (Cledwyn), of 
Wilkes-Barre ; H. G. Williams (Gieddwyson), 
of Plymouth ; Thomas C. Evans (Cilcenin), 
of Nanticoke ; and Griffith P. Williams 
(Tegynys), John R. Davis, and Moses D. 
Evans, of Kingston. 

These papers would in nowise be complete 
if consideration were not given to the notice 
which Wyoming Valley has received from 
poets beyond her borders. The homage that 
has been paid to her is not more devout than 
her beauty can demand. Already she has a 
queen-like reputation in history and litera- 
ture. Of the countless many who have dwelt 
in fantasy, dreaming of her charms, but few 
have had the temerity to engrave upon a 
scroll a statement of their passion. What 
they have written is good or indifferent, but 
never bad. There is one reflection which has 
become quite habituated with my thought : 
What a different tale ot poets and poetry 
would have to be told to-day, if Coleridge 
and Southey, eighty years ago, had but per- 
fected their schemes of paiitisocracy, and had 
settled with their friends upon the banks of 


Susquehanna's “uutamed stream !” If the 
solemn cenotaph to Chatterton rising from 
the mountain side, instead of remaining a 
poetical contemplation, had developed into 
the sweet fact, over what a grand literature it 
would stand the guardian saint ! Hazlitt 
probably had “Gertrude of Wyoming” in 
mind when he wrote that studiously elegant 
criticism on Campbell’s poetry, which reads, 
“A painful regard is paid to the expression, 
in proportion as there is little to express, and 
the decomposition of prose is substituted for 
the composition of poetry.” The truth of 
this assertion is so attentuated that it ceases, 
in its obscurity, to be just. “Gertrude of 
Wyoming” is the absolute creation of a pro- 
lific fancy. Campbell was obliged to made 
even his own landscapes and create his own 
flora and fauna. He knexy nothing of the 
scenery of Wyoming himself, neither did he 
have an opportunity to decompose any prose 
work on the subject, for if he had he surely 
would not have turned the valley into a 
museum for condors, palms, flamingoes, and 
alligators. Perhaps Hazlitt meant to declare 
that Campbell’s poetical sentiments are not 
intrinsically poetical, but that opinion would 
be absurd. Yet it seems as if Spenser him- 
self and Lord Byr >n have been the only poets 
who have invested the Spenseriau stanza 
with semblance of real inspiration. How- 
ever, the Art, which tossed to and fro the 
shuttle of verse, and weaved “Gertrude of 
Wyoming,” was swift and possionate iu her 
movements; aud the three cantos are cut 
from the whole cloth of imagination. It 
must be admitted that the artificiality is not 
so observable but that it can be said, “ ’Tis 
so like sense, ’twill serve the turn as well.” 
Who is he that, possessing the ideality, hav- 
ing once been taken captive by the magic of 
the prelude, “Ou Susquehanna’s side, fair 
Wyoming,” has not followed the tale to its 
pathetic close in a sort ot obvious revery ? 
What rapture is more teuder and sublime 
than that awakened by the vision of Gertrude 
in her lonely bower laughing and weeping in 
turns over Shakespeare’s endeared volume? 
Campbell is noted for such meteor-flashes of 


* 


OF WYOMING VALLEY. 


21 


perfect idea and expression. Certainly noth- 
ing in English verse is more purely poetical 
than this description of the trembling Gert- 
rude reclining bn the mossy knoll like a 
lovely personification of Nature, and listen- 
ing with emotion to the accents of consum- 
mate Genius. Fitz-Greene Halleck was the 
poet of disillusion, though never on that ac- 
count of cynicism also. “Alnwick Castle” 
and “Wyoming” have an undying melan- 
choly charm, a tantalizing mournfulness. 
In both poems, after a soft and tender prelude 
sung to inflame the listener’s ideality, does 
this American Elia fatally smile and sadly 
proceed to the disrobing of the very images 
ot his own conjuring, which then hustle 
abashed into ignominous retreat. The ex- 
planation of the paucity of his compositions 
is undoubtedly here, — it was not because he 
lacked poetic sensibility that he failed to re- 
spond to his inspirations; it was — that in 
whatever realms of fancy his spirit wan- 
dered it was still attended by the gnawing 
consciousness of earthly reality. The twelve 
Spenserian stanzas, entitled “Wyoming,” 
have these characteristics. The poem opens in 
the finest vein of Campbell ; and, as it is at 
, once perceived, owed its origin to the “Gert- 
rude-” Dreams and exaltations are at 
first rehearsed, and then comes lightly 
spoken but sorrowful raillery. No Gertrude, 
Waldegrave, Albert now, he sings — and so 
admits the utter ideality of Campbell’s crea- 
tions. Halleck’s burlesque meets no resent- 
ment in the hearts of his readers, for all can 
taste the sentimental flavor of its mock-ear- 
nestness. If his “Wyoming” has one fault 
it is that too many moods of mind chase each 
other with such rapid fickleness through so 
snort a space of rhyme. But of all the poems 
which have vet been written relating to our 
valley, Campbell’s and Halleck’s, it must 


be confessed, are by far the greatest, both in 
respect to Genius and Art. Mrs. Lydia 
Huntly Signourey, who, during the first half 
of the present eentury, was such a strong 
force in moulding the moral and intellectual 
agencies of the American mind and heart, did 
not in her busy career pass unnoticed the ro- 
mantic beauty and tragic history of Wyom- 
ing. A well known critic has said of her 
poems, “They are more like the dew than 
the lightning; yet the dew, it is well to re- 
member, is one of the most powerful 
of nature’s agents— far more potential in 
its grand results than its brilliant rival.” 
And what applies to her collected volume of 
poems, applies well to her poems, “To the 
Susquehanna” and “Wyoming.” They are 
not great creations, but the former has a mild- 
ness and delicacy that reminds one of Mrs. He- 
mans’ “Voice of Spring,” combined with the 
graceful descriptions of Bryant, and the latter 
is a tender but earnest appeal for the erection 
of a monument in memory of those massacred 
at the Wyoming battle. Professor Henry 
Copee, LL. D., of Lehigh University, wrote 
and read at the Centennial of the Wyoming 
massacre a pleasant poem, entitled “Beauti- 
ful Wyoming.” It is a poem of consummate 
taste and genius, and contains some delicate 
touches and accurate descriptions. “The 
Tribute of Massachusetts to Wyoming” was 
the title of a graceful and melodious verse 
composition by Rev. C. D. Barrows, of Lo- 
well, Mass., read at the one hundredth anni- 
versary exercises of the mas -acre of Wyom- 
ing. Mrs. Mary Sparks Wheeler, of Phila- 
delphia, has written a poem, entitled “The 
Wyoming Centennial,” and the cleverest se- 
lection of Col. John A. Joyce’s volume of 
Peculiar Poems is entitled “Wyoming Val- 
ley.” Wi>ll S. Monroe. 






